Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat, is a fascinating work. The wolf pack (at least in the Canadian sub-arctic) only forms to follow the caribou, and breaks up into smaller family groups at other times of the year. I highly recommend the book--the movie done from it is a stinker, however.
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:what does jake do when he's serious?
Trust me, Steve, you really oughtn't get him serious. He gets real assertive.
I wonder what a DNA study of Bush would reveal? :wink: :wink:
Agreet, Set, re the book/movie comparison. Another Mowat I found both moving and intersting was A whale for The Killing - again, the translation to screen just plain didn't work. My favorite Mowat is The Dog Who Wouldn't Be. Mutt's gotta have been the best damned dog anybody ever bought for less than a nickle.
au
that he's very nearly human
Certainly more nearly human than a Liberal.
Try to behave with as much decorum and good manners as dogs habitually display, Big Bird.
Mowat has another short and excellent book, The Serpent's Coil, which is about hurricanes and men who go in harm's way at sea. I highly recommend it. Few works of non-fiction can achieve the suspense and excitement he evokes in that small book.
I've heard, and read of, The Serpent's Coil, all good, but never have actually read it. I'll make it a point to do so, once I climb back out of the gutter into which I just recently stooped. Thanks.
Setanta wrote: The wolf pack (at least in the Canadian sub-arctic) only forms to follow the caribou, and breaks up into smaller family groups at other times of the year.
This is a Micro/Macro band structure. The same is used by the Cree Indians (also many other hunter/gatherer groups). The whole issue of environmental determinism is build around observations such as this.
Your comment about the Cree interests me Acq--the métis of Manitoba, descendants of coureurs du bois and Cree women, did exactly the same in their itinerant life as buffalo hunters and carters. In 1871 and again in 1885, their ability to form large "packs" and then break up again into their constituent bands when fighting the Canadian government made them a very formidable foe. It was necessary for the Canadians to use heavy force, and the failing transcontinental railway (for which the price was an infusion of taxpayer capital) to deal with the situation.
This can also be seen in the Keltic and Germanic tribes who confronted Caesar--we are, in my never humble opinion, always far less removed from our animal origins than the religionists would have us believe.
My dogs have always accepted me in the Wolf Pack. Most of the time I get to be Alpha Bitch.
Setanta wrote:Actually, PPD, it was dog--singular. You sure you read that?
't's where the guy's hands freeze and he sets them on fire lighting all his matches at once, ain't it? Can't say I remember anything else.
Wow, that was days ago...
A young greenhorn who is just learning the ropes is on foot headed for a camp in the Yukon, when he falls through the ice into a stream. He knows enough to know he has to get a fire going right away. He does all the right things to accomplish that end--except he starts his fire under a heavily snow-laden evergreen, and the heat causes the snow to slide off, falling onto and extinguishing his fire, which effectively condemns him to death. The dog watches him for a while, and the lopes off to find "other fire and food providers." That's why i said London had a cynical view of dogs.
Hmmmm... So which one has the guy setting fire to his hands?
Setanta - anyone who read "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild" knows beyond any doubt that Jack London truly loved wolfies (a.k.a. real dogs, not to be confused with ratties).
The book you mention isn't among those I've read, but the dog in question strikes me as eminently sensible - who wants to belong in the same pack as a terminal idiot? If the man actually had any shred of character he would have encouraged the dog to move on, this being the blindingly obvious thing to do in his case.
